Court sinks The Pirate Bay in Australia

Pirates ye be warned

Australia’s Federal Court has declared war on online piracy by ordering the country’s internet providers to “take reasonable steps” to block access to several well-known file sharing sites.

The most notorious of the sites to be blocked is The Pirate Bay; founded in Sweden, the site is probably the most infamous source for pirated content in the world, never mind Australia.

The court has ordered that it, as well as Torrentz, TorrentHound, IsoHunt and SolarMovieFour, which are also known for copyright infringement, must be blocked by Australian internet providers within 15 days.

Walking the plank

The judge didn’t specify how the sites should be blocked, just that it should be done by the service providers with the costs being paid by rights holders such as Foxtel and Roadshow Films.

This is an interesting move, as in other countries such as the UK there's no cost. But despite having to foot the bill, the rights holders appear to be delighted with the ruling, which is the first successful use of site-blocking laws in Australia.

Foxtel chief-executive Peter Tonagh described the ruling as a ”major step in both directly combating piracy and educating the public that accessing content through these sites is not OK, in fact it is theft”.

Interestingly, the judge hasn't ordered this to be a "rolling injunction", meaning that if new torrent websites pop after after being blocked, the rights holders will have to return to the courts to file and serve a new affidavit.

Whether or not this specific blocking attempt will be a success is, of course, yet to be seen. However, it's an indication that the fight between rights holders and online pirates has reached an even greater scale.

Thanks to VPNs and millions of websites, online piracy is a crime without borders so it will be necessary for each individual country to take similar actions to have any hope of combating it.